June 10, 2019 — The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is reaching out directly to the Chinese public in a bid to turn opinion against illegal fishing.

The FAO recently launched a social media campaign on Chinese social media in Mandarin, aimed at popular platforms including microblogging site Weibo. The campaign calls for locals to “fight against illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing” and also calls for the protection of fisheries to guarantee food security around the world.

The campaign is a new effort to inform the Chinese public of the impact of illegal fishing on the high seas – some of it conducted by Chinese vessels. The FAO’s campaign is an interesting contrast with state media, which tends to portray the development of China’s distant-water fleet as a strategic national priority.

January 9, 2018 — The latest technical paper on catch documentation schemes from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), discusses how such schemes benefit, or could benefit, deep-sea fisheries by protecting them from illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

The paper’s author, Giles Hosch, found in his research that catch documentation schemes (CDS) are a useful tool for addressing the IUU fishing practices known to take place in deep-sea fisheries, in the areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ).

Catch documentation schemes are a trade-based measure with the purpose of denying market access to fisheries products that have been obtained illegally. They facilitate the tracking and tracing of fish from the point of capture, through unloading and onwards through the supply chain.

July 24, 2017 — Earlier this month, Saving Seafood unveiled our campaign to tell the public that American Seafood is Sustainable Seafood™. A recent paper by Mark Helvey, former NOAA Assistant Regional Administrator for Sustainable Fisheries for the Pacific Region, confirms that purchasing U.S.-caught seafood is one of the most sustainable choices consumers can make, and notes that, “Most Americans remain unaware of the high environmental standards by which U.S. federal marine fisheries – and many state fisheries – are managed, in compliance with multiple state and federal laws.”

According to the paper, the standards under which U.S. fishermen operate “conform to or exceed internationally accepted guidelines for sustainable fisheries adopted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.”

The first recommendation made in the peer-reviewed paper is to “increase awareness…of the high environmental standards by which U.S. federal marine fisheries – and many state fisheries – are managed.”

The paper makes the case that, “Sea Grant Extension Programs in U.S. coastal states and territories have conducted education and out-reach, with NOAA Fishwatch and a number of nongovernmental organizations also helping to bridge this gap. However, further efforts to address this lack of understanding are needed.”

This is precisely the goal of our American Seafood is Sustainable Seafood™ campaign.

Mr. Helvey provided the following summary of his paper to Saving Seafood:

The United States is recognized for its robust seafood appetite and strong commitment to environmental conservation. However, efforts to close or restrict its own domestic fisheries in pursuit of environmental protection are often not considered within the context of seafood consumption.

Restricting U.S. fisheries comes at the cost of displaced negative environmental impacts associated with the fishing activities of less-regulated, foreign fisheries.

The authors provide six solutions for addressing this issue beginning with the need for U.S. consumers becoming more aware of the exceedingly high environmental standards by which U.S. marine fisheries are managed relative to many foreign ones.

While efforts by NOAA’s Sea Grant Extension Program, FishWatch, and a number of nongovernmental organizations are bridging the information gap, the authors stress that more is required for increasing awareness that U.S fisheries are sustainable fisheries.

The paper, “Can the United States have its fish and eat it too?,” was published in the January 2017 volume of Marine Policy and is co-authored by Caroline Pomeroy, Naresh C. Pradhan, Dale Squires, and Stephen Stohs.

July 6, 2017 — Developing a framework on fisheries and aquaculture for the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) could create over 100 million jobs, Stefania Marrone, the head of the EU delegation to Nigeria and Ecowas’s regional cooperation section, has said.

Representatives of Ecowas, the EU and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) are currently meeting in Abuja to develop a framework on fisheries and aquaculture for the Ecowas area, reports PM News Nigeria.

The sectors play an important role in food and nutrition security in West Africa, with fish being the only animal protein affordable for most households, according to Marrone.

The sector has estimated annual catch of 2.8 million metric tons with commercial values at $3 billion and job creation for over 100 million people in fishing, aquaculture operations, processing and ancillary industries, Marrone said.

Marrone pointed out that in spite the importance, the sector has not been fully integrated into the priorities of the national and regional agricultural development within the Ecowas zone.

She said to improve the situation, there is need to develop a regional fishery and aquaculture policy to address food and nutritional security in the region.

The EU official said that nutrition policy on fisheries and aquaculture represented an untapped opportunity that must be explored to ensure sustainable healthy diets.